BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Describing the benefits of Alabama's controversial common core standards for K-12 math and English, State Superintendent Tommy Bice said this week that the standards teach children how to think rather than telling them what to think.

"They not only help us to teach the arithmetic, they teach us what to do with the arithmetic," Bice told members of the Alabama Community College Association, whom he addressed Tuesday to announce greater cooperation between the state's K-12 education system and its two-year college system.

"We're so excited about where this will head us."

See Bice's explanation of what makes the common core better than the state's old English and mathematics standards below:

Bice told the group that the common core standards are one part of K-12 education's Plan 2020, which seeks to achieve a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020 while simultaneously ensuring all graduates are prepared for college or career.

He said he was "devastated" when he sought input from two-year colleges, four-year colleges, and business and industry and learned graduates from Alabama high schools were lacking.

"The overarching feedback was that graduates from Alabama high schools today appear to lack intellectual curiosity," he said.

While Bice said No Child Left Behind was "exactly what we needed" at the time, "one of the unintended consequences of it was that we spent 10 years preparing students to take a test rather than preparing them to think."

Developed by the Council of Chief State
School Officers and the National Governor's Association, the Common Core
State Standards are intended to improve college and career readiness of
high school graduates across the United States.

Adopted by 45
states and the District of Columbia, they're essentially a list of what
concepts and topics students should grasp by graduation.

The
standards are also intended to provide portability between states,
ensuring students who move to a new state -- particularly military
students -- are not ahead or behind their counterparts.

Republicans
have criticized the standards as a federal intrusion in state education
since the Obama administration announced in 2009 that states seeking
federal Race to the Top grants would be scored in part on whether they
adopted the common core.